Pillars of the Earth

How would life have been in the 12th century. A few hundred years before the beginning of the renaissance period. A period devoid of mobile phones and automobiles. A period that was marked by simplicity and yet looks rich as we look back at the remains from that bygone era.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Pillars of the earth, is beyond doubt, a literary masterpiece by Ken Follett.It takes the reader to a little known place in old England, called as Kingsbridge. A marvellous story about a few people who dream of building a world class cathedral at this place. A cathedral that would be the tallest in England and whose aura would be discussed far and wide across Europe.

It would be a grave understatement to call it a novel on the building of a cathedral. Around this central theme is a gripping story of monks, builders, earls and kings. A story so realistic, you would never forget the characters for years to come. Ken Follett places the reader as a close observer of the lives of the people in the story. You are guaranteed to live in an ancient era, feel the environment, and reflect the emotions of the characters as though everything is happening in reality. Be ready to wander through forests, travel wide across the English kingdom, move over to France and Spain, and immerse yourself a little into their culture back then.

I close the last page of the book, having gone through treachery, violence, love and a belief in god, all described magnificently. One thought lingers - the era was truly turbulent. Are we better off living in this era, or will the simplicity of the middle ages still be preferred?

Pepsi MTV Indies

Remember the late 90s. Parallel music in India was at its peak. What is parallel music??? There are many terms to explain this form of music – Indipop one among them. This was the era of the rise of private albums. People like Alisha Chinai and Baba Sehgal had already made their mark and the legacy was carried over by what we now have as the poster boys of Bollywood music – KK, Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Mohit Chauhan and others. Beyond a doubt, these albums gave us some of the best music we have ever listened to. Recall the album names – Pal, Deewana, Tanha Dil, Dooba Dooba, Yeh hai Prem etc. Thereafter, everything stopped abruptly – stopped just like that (more on that later).

Present day 2014 – MTV is making an attempt to revive non film music with Pepsi MTV Indies (yes, this TV channel has managed active partnerships with Coke as well as Pepsi). With Indies, MTV aims to promote “sub culture” music. They do not want anything that is mainstream. This new channel will be promoted and run digitally and is not aimed at the TV audience alone. MTV had held auditions across the country to pick up singers/bands to be a part of this subtle revolution in the Indian music industry.  

Somehow, I don’t think this will take off. MTV is stubborn in promoting what they call as “subculture” and do not want anything that falls under the realm of pop culture. (for the uninitiated, pop music stands for popular music!!!). There is nothing wrong in that. However, why stick to such hard definitions? A piece of music may belong to any culture, but if it is good, it becomes popular. That’s it. Nothing else. So why do I think it will not take off? Well, listen to the albums and you will know for yourself. In fact, such a revolutionary initiative from MTV should have gone viral across the country. How many people even know this? Look at their YouTube channel – the number of views for each of the videos makes you wonder where this is going. Subculture or pop culture, it makes no difference. What people need is quality.

There are only two kinds of songs – the good ones and the not good ones. The era of Indipop in the 90s gave us good songs. It continued to give us good songs until something happened. That something was called the “digital download”. That is precisely the reason why no music company is ready to invest in private albums anymore.

However, I am very certain that there exists a robust demand for Indipop style songs. Months of reading comments from music lovers across the country has given an assurance that there is a large market out there to be tapped. Piracy is the demon that is the entry barrier to this market.

Unlike movies, private albums do not have to adapt to any situation. They allow an artist to experiment, be creative, take risks and create masterpieces. This country needs many such masterpieces, more so to maintain its extraordinary legacy in music. MTV Indies does not seem to come close to creating such a masterpiece. Perhaps, in their quest for subculture, they missed being popular.

I will leave you with my top 5 picks from Indipop:

 PAL - Mesmerized by KK's god gifted voice.

Boondein: The art of poetry by Mohit Chauhan

Sifar: A raspy voice and an unforgettable  journey 

Yeh Hai Prem: Miling Ingle narrates a romantic story

Ho Gayi Hai Mohabbat: Aslam and Shibani Kashyab, some great lyrics and a nice video  

The Innovator’s New Dilemma

Research in business is an unforgiving area. It is a bit like the IT department in an organization. You are rarely credited with innovation in your insights, but when things go wrong, the world is quick to pounce on you. That trend that you highlighted, those observation you made, the data that you brought forth, all will have that one in a millionth error. Unfortunately, such errors do not go unnoticed often.

Sometimes, the most questionable research comes from surveys conducted by the likes of Nielsen and ORG-MARG. Take the case of the ‘Best B schools’ in India. They start of pretty well in the top 20 rankings cluster, but horribly beat commonsense and general awareness when they move to the next clusters. Further up, If McKinsey is the big daddy of consulting, there are the thought leaders who blast their reports publicly with expertise of their own and convincingly prove why the consulting giant has been blurred in its vision.

All said and done, I would never expect someone to question a celebrated thought leader –Clayton Christensen, an established name at Harvard. Having read his books, it all made sense to me. Add to it the thought provoking insights he conveyed about disruption. The research that he has undertaken, in an era before Google, to arrive at his findings is simply stunning. For the rest of us – the commoners – a lifetime may not be enough to replicate ten percent of his work. The innovator’s Dilemma became a bestseller towards the end of the nineties and tech-business leaders worldwide had the dreaded word on their mind all the time – disruption.

Along comes Jill Lepore, professor of American history at Harvard University and in a rather rude fashion, takes on Clayton’s theory of disruption. Read the article here - THE DISRUPTION MACHINE

The big guns of management get involved, some for and some against. Clayton himself talks to Bloomberg and tries to get his ideas across – as good as defending your deeds in a courtroom. Read the article here - Clayton Christensen Responds to New Yorker Takedown of 'Disruptive Innovation'

How do you thrive in this business? With information becoming accessible everywhere, anytime and across devices, the next critic is around the corner. You really have to go that extra mile ..err.. those hundred extra miles so make sure that your research is highly robust. Boy, It is not going to be an easy career anymore.

Of course, you can always substantiate with facts and silence the critics. But to every critic armed with knowledge of the universe in a box called Google, proving your research right all the time is going to be a herculean task. There are too many loopholes to fix. No research is ever 100 percent accurate and none shall be spared either.

Year 2030: Will we see a drastic fall in crime rate in India?

Last year, a bunch of drunks raped a girl brutally in a moving bus. This incident attracted tremendous media attention and sections of the Indian public made herculean efforts to pressurize the government to bring the culprits to justice immediately. So widespread was coverage that it would have reached almost every person in the country.

The widespread criticism would also serve as a warning for 'potential rapists'. After all, who would dare to commit another rape?? The people of the nation and the media would send them to the gallows. Rape had just quit the country; a crime tagged with zero tolerance.

It did not take long for this argument to be proved wrong. Over the next few weeks, there were other instances of rape, the most well know being the one at Shakti mills. How did this happen? Were the rapists unaware of public intolerance?? Had they not watched television?? Was the intensity of a penalty, that could include capital punishment,  not strong enough??

Why do people behave this way? Is it so difficult to achieve a civilized society? To answer questions of this kind, there have been innumerable articles on what drives people towards criminal behavior. Thinking along those lines has not helped. Instead, the answer lies outside this story. The answer is with us and not the criminals.

Ask yourself how many times have you participated in communal riots? How many rapes against your name? How many murders and other crime? If you are reading this blog, the answer is probably none. Yeah true!! But how could I be so sure with even knowing who the reader is?

The answer is that the reader is educated. It is for this reason that you have never been involved in rapes, murders and other crime. Does this mean that all educated individuals are the best behaved? Probably not. There have been many educated people who have indulged is rape, money laundering and even acts of terrorism. However, they are outliers.

The fact remains that educated people are likely to behave in a civilized way. Not because of the books that they read, but because of the conditioning their mind is subjected to. The educational institution, the teachers, the peers and the overall environment is conducive for creating members of a harmonious society.

Can this be proved in practice for all sections of the society? Yes, it can be. Something happened a year or two ago that can prove this on a large scale, but not immediately. It will take years. What happened is called as RTE.

The government made it mandatory for schools to admit some kids from nearby slums. When these slum dwelling children, on the path to becoming low wage laborers, are instead subjected to quality education and a healthy atmosphere, they will carry some of this  influence home. Over a period of time their likelihood of going down the wrong path in life reduces. They become better individuals and spread their new found values in their community.

A pair of twins that grow up in different families will likely exhibit different behavior as they grow up. Their environment almost redefines their DNA. A couple of decades down the line, the RTE should stand as the biggest contributor that has uplifted the poverty ridden masses, to some extent at least. This is one “reservation” category that should not be fought against. Many others, definitely.

No initiative comes unaccompanied by problems. Lack of awareness, getting the required certificates and other issues may hamper the smooth functioning of this pro-societal act. If the new government is able to ensure that things work out as desired, be ready to embrace a new age India.

For the grown up criminals out there, RTE would be ineffective. You can bend a plant but you cannot bend a tree that easily. Changing mindsets is one of the most difficult tasks. For those that cannot change their way of thinking: the only answer to crime is punishment. The only answer to rape is capital punishment.

Automation: Is it time to press the panic button? Not immediately, but not too far either

“Please press 1 for banking, press 2 for loans, press 3 for credit cards…..”  - sounds familiar right? Yes it does. These are typically the menu options that you hear when you contact your bank’s customer care. In a different era in the past, a human would answer the phone. Now, that guy has been sacked; sacked and replaced by the “Interactive voice response system”. Will the guy ever get this job back? No, never – that job has disappeared and will never resurface again.

This is just one example among thousands,  where human jobs have been lost to machines. Take a look around you and you will see plenty of people in those jobs that are vulnerable to automation. The “low level” or “repetitive task type”  jobs are among the endangered species. Needless to say, the future of these jobs looks bleak and these people better upgrade their skills, else ……..

Ok, we understand that there are certain jobs vulnerable to automation. What about those that need a considerable amount of human intervention/intelligence? The answer to this is simple. Automation will destroy existing jobs in phases. First, the ones that we read above, and next will be the “currently  hard to automate” jobs, which will gradually disappear with the evolution of artificial intelligence. As for the economy, do not be surprised to see a phase where unemployment and the economic condition of a country may rise simultaneously. How? Businesses will be profitable by replacing humans with technology; the efficiencies are terrific.  However, these two variables may not continue their correlation for long. Businesses need customers and in due course, the unemployed workforce will not have sufficient buying power. What will happen then?  No idea, please ask the guys at Freakonomics!!!!

Opponents of change have always downplayed the power of automation. They simply cannot acknowledge its disruptive nature. The common argument is “you will always require human intervention, at least for the last mile”. Maybe true, but do they realize that many jobs before the last mile will easily disappear.

Two recent developments that should give everyone a cause for concern are Watson and Eliza. For the uninitiated, these are high-end technological innovations by IBM and IPsoft respectively. Watson is a Robot that beat humans in the game of Jeopardy (a TV quiz show) and Eliza is a Blond …..(wait, let me complete)… a blond humanoid whom you can see on your computer/device screens and who plays the role of a service desk employee. With such serious developments, we now have some direction as to where automation is heading.

Machines in a winning mood - IBM's Watson at Jeopardy

It is very difficult to predict what the future holds. However, it would do the human race a lot of good in being prepared before this disruptive force sweeps us off our feet on a massive scale.

Having said all this, automation should be ideally able to perform tasks as well as humans. Does that happen all the time – not really. Most of us would have learnt this while reaching out to call centres. So until we have better technologies and machine intelligence in place, you may have to continue to press 1 for frustration, 2 for increasing blood pressure, press 3 for banging your head on the wall.